I think that you guys are giving AT&T a lot more credit than they deserve.

There is no way that they can detect an A2DP connection on their end. All they look for are anomalies. You normally use X amount of data and that day you exceeded you normal usage by some factor. They assume it is tethering as they do, indeed, want you on a tiered plan.

We are all fairly technically savvy here. Could you imagine if that notice goes to someone with only a rudimentary knowledge of how phones work? Chances are that they agree and give up their unlimited data plan. It is a shady business driven by the bottom line.

Call them on their crap and make them prove that you tethered your phone. That is the only way that they can hold you in breach of your contract and force you off of your unlimited data plan.

I wonder if the head unit itself is trying to send a request to the phone to access your mobile connection or something ridiculous like that where AT&T is actually detecting something that would send a tethering warning. You may laugh at me for saying that, but stranger things have happened. Personally, If I got the warning I would probably consider just going old school and using a 3.5mm cable to listen to streaming music and see if heard anything after that.

Personally, If I got the warning I would probably consider just going old school and using a 3.5mm cable to listen to streaming music and see if heard anything after that.

That can be an interesting test to do, just to see if you will get bothered again by AT&T. Though it would make you lose the ability to control your music player using the steering wheel buttons or the car stereo buttons.

Are you running Pandora on the car or on the phone? If you are running it on the phone and just using the speakers on the car, then I don't see a problem. If you are running Pandora on the car and using the phone for internet access, then technically you are tethering. Not that agree with AT&T stance on tethering.

Are you running Pandora on the car or on the phone? If you are running it on the phone and just using the speakers on the car, then I don't see a problem. If you are running Pandora on the car and using the phone for internet access, then technically you are tethering. Not that agree with AT&T stance on tethering.

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There is a big difference using the bluetooth to stream music vs. using it as a data connection for some other device to use the phone as modem

They actually have VERY little ability to detect tethering (especially if using https) yeah they may be able to detect headers n such, but still, one can change their own headers to get the full page naturally (instead of the baby mobile page)

What has happened is they see that you're using a lot of data. I've seen this a lot. Us with the grandfathered unlimited. I stream pandora/spotify all day to my car and I got a call once. Saying I was tethering. I laughed on the phone and asked for a date. Then i asked for the header information that proves i was tethering. They couldn't provide. Then i asked what kind of device was I tethering (something you can easily detect), they couldn't tell me. I said to them "I dont appreciate you lying to me. I know you do this to people whom use a lot of their unlimited data plan. It's all over the internet. If you call me about this lie again, I can assure you, I will transfer to verizon. If we have a problem, transfer me to your boss and I'll make sure he or she knows that too"

The rep quickly apologized and said I wouldn't hear about this again.

I'm not kidding at all. It's just their way of intimidation to get you out of unlimited and into the tiered plans. WATCH OUT, I have seen people automatically pushed into a tiered plan. A few straight up canceled (with no penalty) because technically AT&T had no proof they violated their contract, so they pretty much had to let them go for free.

AT&T stretches the definition of "tethering" in order to move customers to tiered data plans. I received one notice from them for tethering last year. I was tethering with my jailbroken iPhone and they obviously didn't like that.

I got really shook when I finally got the GS3 and used 10GB data in a month. I really thought they'd come up with some lousy excuse to accuse me of tethering, but fortunately nothing happened and I continue to enjoy my unlimited plan.

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